Battle of Brávellir
The Battle of Brávellir or the Battle of Bråvalla was a battle that described in Norse sagas taking place at Brávellir between Sigurd Hring, king of Sweden and the Geats of Västergötland and his uncle, Harald Wartooth who was king of Denmark and the Geats of Östergötland. Sources The 8th century is when the battled could have taken place and was retold in several sources that include Norse sagas, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, Bósa saga ok Herrauðs and Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum, and it is the most described in the nationalistic Danish history Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus. Cause Harald decided to inherit Sweden from his maternal grandfather, Ivar Vidfamne, but ruled Denmark and East Götaland, where the subordinate king, Sigurd Hring, ruled Sweden and West Götaland. According to the legends (or the Norse sagas), Harald Wartooth began to realize how he was growing very old and will soon die of old age and not be able to go to Valhalla in which he consequently asked Sigurd if he'd let him leave his life in a great battle. from Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna. - http://www.wikipedia.org]] Preparation According to the Saxo Grammaticus, the preparation took seven years before the battle and over 200,000 people served in the armies where Harald was joined by the legendary heroes by the name of, Ubbe of Friesland, Uvle Brede, Are the One-eyed, Dag the Fat, Duk the Slav, Hroi Whitebeard, and Hothbrodd the Indomitable who was joined as well by 300 shieldmaidens led by Hed, Visna of the Slavs, and Hedborg. Sigurd later recruited legendary heroes, Starkad, Egil the Bald, Grette the Evil (who was Norwegian), Blig Bignose, Einar the Fatbellied, and Erling Snake. There were the famous Swedes by the name of Arwakki, Keklu-Karl, Krok the peasant, Gummi and Gudfast from Gislamark. They were then joined byt he scores of Norwegians, Slavs, Finns, Estonians, Curonians, Bjarmians, Livonians, Saxons, Angles, Frisians, Irish, Rus', and more. They all picked their sides and there were whole stacks of forests that were chopped down so 3,000 longships could be built to transport the Swedes. Harald's Danes had so many ships already built that they were possible to walk across The Sound. There, then the numbers were exaggerated by a tenfold or more, which compared with 3,000 Swedish ships, the leidang fleets of most Scandinavian kingdoms numbered around 300 ships each during the course of the Viking Age. Battle The accounts found in Gesta Danorum and the Sǫgubrot saga are essentially the same. When the battle first begun, two armies fought very collectively then after a while Ubbi was in the center of attention which he then slew Ragnvald the Wise Councilor, then champion Tryggvi and three Swedish princes of the royal dynasty. King Sigurd Hring who was humbled sent the champion Starkad who wounded Ubbi but he was more wounded then him, Agnar was killed later by Ubbi, took the sword in both hands and slashed a path through the Swedish host until he fell riddled with arrows from archers of Telemark. Then later, the shieldmaiden Veborg killed the champion by the name of Soti which gave more additional wounds to Starkad, in which he was angered. Starkad after being infuriated, killing all Danish warriors around him and cut off Shieldmaiden Visna's arm of who held the Danish banner, Starkad later proceeded to slay and kill Brai, Grepi, Gamli, and Haki. When Harald observed the heroic feats, he was in his chariot on his knees with one sword in both hands in which, he killed a great army of warriors from his left and his right then after a while, Harald's steward Bruni deemed that his liege had amassed enough glory and crushed the king's skull with a club. Outcome of the Battle Sigurd of the Swedes won the battle and became the ruler of both, Sweden and Denmark and the outcome of the deaths were 40,000 warriors killed. Category:Battles Category:Vikings